MORE ON RUBIO vs. OBAMA JUSTICE – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  We reported yesterday that red-hot Marco Rubio, the sure winner of the Florida GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat, is suddenly under investigation.  The Politico has more details:

A widening federal criminal investigation into the state Republican Party’s credit card usage is unsettling the Florida GOP Senate primary, raising concerns about its potential effect on GOP front-runner Marco Rubio’s campaign and providing hope to Democrats who believe it could be the story line that stalls the surging conservative’s momentum.

The Internal Revenue Service is now exploring the tax records of Rubio, former state party Chairman Jim Greer and former GOP Executive Director Delmar Johnson to determine whether they improperly used party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a joint report Wednesday by the Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times.

The inquiry, which stemmed from the indictment of former state House Speaker Ray Sansom, will in part focus on the more than $100,000 Rubio charged to a state party American Express card during the two years he was House speaker. In addition, the FBI is looking into whether Sansom and others made false statements on their tax returns.

The probe has cast a shadow over the GOP primary, in which Florida Gov. Charlie Crist must soon decide whether to remain a candidate or run as an independent. The governor has targeted Rubio’s credit card spending for months, arguing that it undercuts his fiscal conservative credentials. To date, however, the scrutiny hasn’t registered much of an impact, as Rubio has built a double-digit lead in polls and recently raked in a jaw-dropping quarterly fundraising haul.

COMMENT:  Do you have some suspicions about the timing here?  Just days ago we learned that the banking firm of Goldman Sachs had been indicted for fraud...right in the middle of Obama's campaign to pass financial-industry reform legislation.

Now we have a probe of Rubio, right in the middle of a U.S. Senate campaign.

Are these things coincidental?

And of course the Justice Department went to work immediately to be sure that the guy who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit in December got the PC treatment, big time.

When the justice system becomes a handmaiden of the political system, we're in trouble.  And I get the sense that we're in big trouble, with things getting constantly worse.

April 22, 2010